Aerial Projection 3D Display Based on Integral Imaging

Abstract

We proposed an aerial projection 3D display based on integral imaging. It is composed of a projector, a lens-array holographic optical element (HOE), and two parabolic mirrors. The lens-array HOE is a diffraction grating and is made by the volume holography technique. The lens-array HOE can be produced on a thin glass plate, and it has the optical properties of a lens array when the Bragg condition is satisfied. When the display beams of the element image array (EIA) are projected on the lens-array HOE, 3D images can be reconstructed. The two parabolic mirrors can project 3D images into the air. The Bragg-unmatched light simply passes through the lens-array HOE. Therefore, the aerial projection 3D images appear to be imaged in the air without any medium. In the experiment, a BenQ projector was used for the projection of 3D images, with a resolution of 1600 × 1200. The diameter and the height of each parabolic mirror are 150 mm and 25 mm, respectively. The inner diameter of the parabolic mirror is 40 mm. The 3D images were projected in the air, and the experimental results prove the correctness of our display system.